Adjusting To Daily Life: The Psychology of Surviving Law School

Law school exposes students to many substantive areas. To understand law, you have to understand the subjects that the law governs. For example, to understand real property law, you must have a general understanding of deeds and mortgages. Similarly, to understand income tax, you must understand annuities and dividends-or at least know what they are. Most professors teach students about the substantive areas that the law in their classes covers. Thus, you will gain a broad understanding of many areas:

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FLEXIBILITY

As a law student, you will have the flexibility to spend time doing the things you enjoy because you can study whenever you want. You can exercise in the middle of the day, spend a few hours volunteering or watching television, or go to the movies. You are working for yourself.

Law courses are challenging intellectually. You will probably find that you are pushed beyond your academic comfort zone-possibly for the first time in your life.

Professors and classmates will challenge your assumptions. You will learn new critical-thinking skills.

A NOTE TO SIGNIFICANT OTHERS

Those of you who care about someone starting law school probably have many questions and apprehensions of your own. This section will briefly address some common concerns you may have.

WILL HER OR HIS PERSONALITY CHANGE?

Any experience in life changes us in some way. The most common complaint about law students is that they become more argumentative or strident. Although saying law school changes a person's personality is a generalization, it is true to some extent. Law students become very comfortable debating issues and unconsciously may try to debate every aspect of their personal life as well as tort policy.

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You probably will also get tired of hearing about the law and recaps of the cases your significant other finds amusing.

My mother decided rather late in life that she wanted to be an attorney. As I entered high school in California, she was starting Columbia Law School in Massachusetts. At spring break, I flew to Massachusetts, and we drove her car together back to the West Coast. With exams approaching, she brought along her legal texts and read as I drove.

She would read a case, sigh, and, then complain for a while about how boring the law was. Eventually, she brightened. "Look, it's not all boring. Here's a negligence case about a flour mill. The holding-which is where the court gives its opinion-says, 'we hold it self-evident that persons in charge of flour barrels should not drop them out of windows.' Funny, huh?" Hysterical.

A few years later, my wife started law school at Boston University. My wife is a far more cheerful person, and she came bounding through the door after her first day of Torts class with an amusing anecdote to share with me. "Listen to this, "she said, "the professor told us this really funny story about a flour mill today."

When I finally started law school at NYU, five years after my mom graduated and during my wife's third year at Boston University, I was looking forward, if not to nonstop entertainment, at least to new stories. New York, I figured, is a long way from Boston, and surely the professors will have different stories to share. My first class was Torts, and the professor dutifully cautioned us that we would have to wade through a lot of really dense legal writing over the next three years. However, she assured us, even judges have a sense of humor. "Let me share my favorite holding with you," she offered.

Yep, it was about a flour barrel, and, yep, it was probably the only interesting story of the year. -KEITH SCULLY, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL

WILL I EVER SEE HER OR HIM?

Although the law school curriculum is challenging and demanding, you will probably see your significant other more than you think. The beauty of being a student is the flexibility of hours and the ability to always work at home.

What may be affected is the quality of time spent with your significant other. Much time, especially the first year, must be spent studying. In addition, your law student may be crabby or irritable for reasons unknown to you.

The good news is that much of this goes away the second year. Second- and third-year students work hard, but they are used to the routine and less stressed. In addition, because first-year grades are the most important for finding "coveted" big firm jobs, the pressure academically is greatly reduced after the first year.

WHAT CAN I DO TO MAKE THE NEXT THREE YEARS PALATABLE?

The best thing to do is develop a life of your own. Focus on your own career and pick up old hobbies or find new ones. Make friends to socialize with apart from your significant other.

You should also remember to keep your sense of humor. Feel free to make light of your significant other's neurosis. Try to make your law student laugh, too.

Finally, remember that law school will be over in three years. After law school graduation, you will have the pleasure of the bar, 2,000 billable hours per year, and important trials that eat up weekend after weekend.

WHAT TO DO IF YOU HAVE CHILDREN

More than anything, going to law school while bringing up two children alone has been a logistical challenge. I found myself scheduling my courses around my children's school and activity schedules and around baby-sitters1 schedules. No matter how carefully I planned, however, I often found myself bringing a child to class or to the library with me, or getting paged in the middle of class when carefully worked out logistics fell through or a child was ill. -ANONYMOUS, FORDHAM LAW SCHOOL

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